Dier earns Fan of the Match

NASHVILLE — Shawn Dier doesn’t have much time left with Nashville Soccer Club as his local team, but he’s going to take full advantage of the time he has, and that’s what makes him this week’s Fan of the Match.

Dier, who is a rare member of the Roadies supporters group that is an actual roadie by trade, has been a fan of the club along with his wife Rachel since the amateur days.

“We were sitting at the house bored one day, and we started talking about soccer,” Dier says of their first match day in 2015. “We decided we were going to go to the Nashville FC game that was being played in Murfreesboro. We made a quick run to Academy to buy ourselves some rain jackets, and then we sat and watched in the rain. Ever since, we’ve tried to make it to as many matches as we can.”

However, the opportunities for Dier to make it to a match are going to become few and far between in the coming months as he will be juggling both his touring career with a move to Seattle.

“Rachel and I are hoping to be the first members of the Pacific Northwest chapter of the Roadies,” Dier said, laughing. “We’re going to miss the friends we’ve made through this. Because of our schedules, we didn’t have a lot of friends here before getting involved with the team, and now we’ve created this little family for ourselves. It’ll probably be the thing we miss the most when we move.”

The couple has been a staple in the supporters end to the point it might come as a surprise that they didn’t begin last year there.

“One of my favorite memories as an NSC fan was actually our first USL game,” Dier recalls, referencing Nashville’s 2-0 win over Charlotte. “We were right at midfield and in the first row, and it was our first time going to a professional club match in the U.S. It was probably like 40 degrees, but we were there bundled up with another 4,000 or so people and then the team won. It was great.”

Dier, who also recently traveled with a small contingent of Nashville fans to the match in Pittsburgh, can’t wait to have visitors join him in Seattle in 2020.

“We plan on being involved in the supporters culture in Seattle, but Nashville will always be our team,” he said. “We’re super looking forward to having the team come out to Seattle when we’re in MLS, and we’re already planning to open up whatever little bit of space we have for folks flying out for the game. I’m also looking forward to coming back. NSC will always going to be a part of us.”